Facts and Statistics

• There are about 8.7 million deaf and hard of hearing people in the UK.
  
  
• Of these 8.7 million people, most of them, about 8 million have an acquired hearing loss; they have become hard of hearing as they have grown older, or lost their hearing through illness, accident or noise damage.
  
  
• About 673,000 people in the U.K. were born deaf or became deaf early in life, before they had developed language. Many of these people may read and write English perfectly, but some have difficulty with it.
  
  
• About 50,000 people in the U.K. use sign language as their preferred language. They see themselves as a linguistic minority and do not consider their deafness to be a disability. In Northern Ireland both British and Irish sign language are used.